Loch Etive and The Sons of UisnachChapter XXVII -
Conversation on the Celts

Cameron. —Then
you think that the language which we call Celtic was spoken in the
countries called Celtic, before the first invasion mentioned in
Roman history as being made on Italy by that people?

Loudoun.—I
think that the countries alluded to must have had a Celtic language,
or mixture of languages, and I think that mixture was allied to the
Roman. For that reason they coalesced so easily. Those nearest Rome
would have the language nearest to Latin.

Cameron.—If it
be true that the language spoken by the Celts in Gaul was closely
allied to that spoken by us here in the Highlands and in Ireland, it
seems to me that we must be all of one race and family, from Rome to
Donegal and Sutherland.

Loudoun.—Here
you introduce difficulties. I have already shown the great diversity
in appearance amongst the nations even now called Celts, and Dion
Cassius says that the Gaul of his time contained many tribes. Now, I
particularly called your attention to the great continuousness of
race upon the ground it first seizes. The long-continued and
enormous migration of Goths into France has not made it Gothic. When
lately going from the north down to Nimes by the Bourbonnais
Railway, I did not see light-coloured hair at any station till we
came near the south, when I saw that the children on the high ground
were light-haired. In going up again to Dijon, it was wonderful to
see the old Burgundian country with light-haired people, or at least
not black, and the whole country population befaced like Germans,
with countenances sympathetic for us Saxons, and to find this strong
in Alsace, at least where I went, and on to Saarbourg and Saarbrucke,
and north to Trier and Aachen.

Margaet.—That
makes me think of the poem-

and so on

Loudoun.—Of
course this is no proof that the Nibelungen Lied was written in
Burgundy, but it shows the Germanism of the kingdom in the poet's
mind. Worms, where, in the German version of the story, the heroine
is said to have lived, was far east in Burgundy, and Dijon far west;
in the first there is German and in the second there is French
spoken; still, I say that in the province of Burgundy, if we do not
extend its limits to the extreme limit of its power, at any moment,
there is the north-eastern face and hair, yes, and character ; and
no one who looks at the Burgundians will care much for their early
boast, that they sprang from Romans. Language is no final proof. The
Franks speak French now, and are not as the old Franks.

Cameron—You
seem to argue both ways—the Burgundians not altered, and the Franks
altered.

Loudoun.—This
only shows the complex character of the subject. The Burgundians on
the side of Germany making constant inroads, destroyed, to a great
extent, the Gallic character, but were not the less altered by the
Gauls, and made to speak French. The Franks going farther forwards,
were absorbed altogether, at least as to appearance and language.
Their character may be sought mixed with the present French.

All who came far
enough west became Celtic, because of the strong Celtism in the
west, and this Celtism extended to Scotland and Ireland. But this
Celtism was a consequence of a great mixture.

Cameron.—Is it
not difficult to reconcile these theories with the fact of Rome
being separated from the Celts by part of Etruria, even allowing
that the languages of Umbria and Liguria were Celtic?

Loudoun.—The
first speakers of Celtic came early, in my opinion. The invasions of
the Celts spoken of by the Romans were by a later band, and some of
these new comers were less civilized than the long resident. It is
indeed questionable how far some of the immigrants were Celts, the
Romans not distinguishing them well from Germans. (See Ethnology of
Germany, Part II., by H. H. Howorth, Esq., F.S.A., Journal of
Anthropological Institute, February 1878.) But in any case, the
Etruscan break into Italy does not alter the case. Even Etruria may
have had a population originally as Celtic as Umbria before a Greek,
Lydian, Phoenician, or northern race came there and planted
civilization, which is difficult to retrace. The similarity of the
Roman language, even to Irish and Scotch Gaelic, is too great to be
passed over, and we must explain it.

My idea is, that the
Celtic language, coming west, ran down into Macedonia in part, but
being stopped, pushed on westwards because the road was less
occupied, and pressing on, occupied west Europe, and poured into
Italy. Rome thus got its language, which was modified by soon
meeting that of Greece. The Celtic was modified in Gaul by meeting
an endless number of small tribes. This explains why the Celtic
language is not totally Aryan, at least my belief is that it cannot
be totally so.

This explains also
why the Celtic nations are not wholly Aryan; and, indeed, at the
root of this argument, you will see why no nation of western Europe
is, or at least can be proved to be totally Aryan. Of course we can
see, without much observation, that the differences are too great to
allow of much pure Aryan blood, but the probability is that there is
none pure.

O'Keefe.—Then
you will refuse to the West Highlanders the purity of Celtic blood,
and even to the Irish?

Loudoun.-How
is it possible to consider even the Irish as pure-blooded. It
required many races to build up your people, and many tongues to
make your language. "Tanta moles erat," &c. (I like my school-day
quotations) may be said of you, as it was of the greatest city of
your kindred—Rome, which had Greek and other strange and subtle
Eastern blood ; but do not be cast down, even if you are mixed with
clear German blood, and that of the "powerful azure Gentiles and the
fierce hard-hearted Danars," who oppressed you long since : even
whilst they killed your countrymen, they were -obliged to leave
their vigour in your land. We see the mixture already existing, and
we read of ancient mixtures; but we must remember that the older
mixtures were probably more Celtic than the modern, as the newer
waves at least were Teutonic or Scandinavian of a known type. The
early people of the west, who lived so long, according to my
opinion, without being invaded by the bringers of the Aryan tongue,
had probably long been disconnected from Central Asia, so that they
formed not merely one separate race, but several races and
varieties, in appearance and character, and it might take several
invasions to modify the tongue of Ireland, so as to make it somewhat
different from that of Gaul. There were men continually prowling
about the sea; Fumorians landed on the shores, especially of the
north and north-west—by name, "men of the sea" probably. Famhair is
a giant, and may also mean "man of the sea." It is true that Faobh
Fear is considered a derivation, meaning "spoil man," but this is
much strained, and we want the gin. They were evidently connected
with the German and Northern Ocean. I presume they were large men,
because the men of the sea, Fear mara, and giants have the same
possible derivation. They may have even been of Celtic origin, since
there were people in the north of Germany who were not Germans—the
gens Æstiorum, for example, mentioned by Tacitus, possessors of
Amber. If any one will connect Pomerania with Fomoria, I do not
object, although Fear Mara was probably the first form of the word—a
man of the sea—it is not so clear that the F should become a
P. I may be wrong. This is a perfectly fair and probable mode
of adding fresh Celtic blood to Ireland. There is still an island in
the Baltic called Femern or Fehmarn, which we know to be near
once formidable nests of sea rovers, and here it stands with a
Celtic name, or at least one which may be Celtic, and which is
closely woven into Irish legendary life, let us say also historical.

There were also
people in Ireland called Tuatha de Danann. You sec that they came
also, perhaps first, to Scotland, bringing wonders (p. 41)—a very
wise wily people versed in magic. Although there was no kingdom
known as Denmark when they appeared, it is not going far to suppose
them to have come from the rest of the Danes who gave Denmark its
name, and who, as the Cimbric Chersonesus is supposed to have also
had a number of Celts to get rid of, were obliged to run west, as
others had done, before the Teutons, or be thrown down among the
dregs.

The "black Danars"
spoken of in "the wars of the Gaedhil and the Gaill" were clearly
Danes, and we have tall, dark-haired men in Denmark still,
accounting for a dark colour without small Iberians. In Denmark at
present there are more light or red-haired. I have counted in a
regiment in Copenhagen two thirds having reddish hair. Thus we have
both black and red from Denmark, the second agreeing with a
tradition in Scotland that red-haired are Danish, and with a
statement, which I give as my own opinion, that there are red-haired
people of Ireland who have neither the proper German nor
Scandinavian type. They are probably the same as of old, but all
called Celts, speaking one tongue.

Of course, we must
say a word about Firbolgs—men who have been called Belgians, also
bagmen, miners carrying sacks, creeping men, and lately men with
paunches. It is not impossible, from their attacks having been made
in the south of Ireland, that these men were Belgians, but from
their character and appearance it is most unlikely. Still accounts
arc very different. One says that they were a mean and contemptible
race—small, quarrelsome tattlers, slaves and thieves, very numerous
and black-haired. I do not recognise such a race in Belgium—a
country filled with quiet and remarkably industrious people; but if
they were Celts, they had less occasion to emigrate, we would
suppose, for if driven west they had Gaul to flee to. Mr. Skene
thinks they came from Cornwall, and if so were Celtic. Their numbers
may have grown, notwithstanding that in early times they were said
to have been reduced to 300 fighting men.

It seems to me more
likely that the name had nothing to do with Belgium. It seems better
to use a derivation out of fashion now, "men of the quiver"—Fir,
men, and bolg, a quiver —men who used bows and arrows, which were of
late introduction into Ireland ; possibly the Firbolgs alone used
them for a long time. Perhaps you would go back, and say that the
Belgians were called Firbolgs or men with quivers; but that is going
far, since this arm would surely be well known among other people of
the continent: still it is admissible.

Cameron.—And
do you think that with these facts you can account for the condition
of our language and people.

Loudoun.—These
facts are stated generally enough to include, in a similarly general
way, some questions relating to Irish and Celtic ethnology; but it
is a wide subject, not to be trifled with by throwing it aside, and
telling us that all the tribes of Europe are the same.

Cameron.—I
have heard that all the country was inhabited by small men called
Iberians, and that they were really the true beginning of the Celtic
race. Although you have quoted Irish story for making the Firbolgs
dark and mean, we can also quote other sayings for making them
yellow-haired and large, and Dionysius Periegeta applies ucveloc and
uyauos to the Iberians, rich, and, shall we say, noble or splendid?
Festus Avienus says, "Tellus Europa Columnis Proxima magnanimos alit
aequo cespite Ibcros." If Eber were the true beginning of the
Iberians in Ireland, they would belong to the Milesians. If not,
this theory breaks down.

Loudoun.—These
opinions are contradictory, but these quotations are not specially
applicable to the Kymry, who have been called Iberian, and their
presence would agree in confirming diversity of appearance in
Ireland in early times, as from present appearances we could
confidently argue.

I take the
description of the Firbolgs from MacFirbis' Book of Genealogies, as
quoted by O'Curry in his "MSS. Materials," p. 224. These Firbolgs we
know little of, but in their external appearance I still consider
the evidence to be for the dark and small people. Now we know that
small and dark people did not cover all Ireland and Scotland,
whether we argue from the Irish records or the appearance of the
descendants of the old Irish. Besides, FirboIgs were not the only
"less noble race" in Ireland ; there were Gailiuns and Domhnauns, if
these two were not merely a part of the same race, and we have no
evidence of one original race here any more than in Gaul and Italy
in historical or even Irish legendary times. There may, however,
have been a race or series of tribes over W 'estern Europe
sufficiently one or sufficiently mixed up to have a similar
language, as has been explained. I incline, however, as already
said, to the belief that this similarity was produced by an invading
people, who moulded the language of all the tribes to their will,
absorbing the tribal language, and thus forming the known Celtic,
the Aryan part being the same, but the tribal part different. This
accounts for the great diversity, as well as similarity, from Rome
to Donegal.

It is more probable
that this invading race brought in the links of union than that
these existed before, because people with small culture spread over
a great region have little communion. The idea accounts also for
some people supposing the Celts to be fair, and others dark. I argue
that the Celtic established nations are dark, although the Aryan
influx that made the language may have been fair-haired. It gave
language and so far cultivation, but if the men were fair they were
to a great extent physiologically conquered by the dark-haired
races, who were in overwhelming predominance in most places. The
German words in the present Gaelic are numerous, and how can it be
otherwise? Some of the later races were evidently German or
Scandinavian in our islands, and we do not know if the Fomorians may
not have been German in part, since the Irish could not distinguish
the pure Aestian of Pomerania from his neighbour if they were
different. All were great sea rovers and robbers. It appears that
Greek and German, Latin and Celtic are the two pairs of languages
which have dominated Europe, the Greek being allied in the south to
the German in the north, and the Latin to the Celtic, but all
altered by the pre-existent men and the long-enduring centuries, the
least permanent being in the west, to which the earliest races were
more driven.

Some confusion in the
history of the Celts has come from the Iberians, whom the
inhabitants of South Wales are said to have resembled in the early
centuries. This has naturally led ethnologists to think of similar
dark people in Ireland. Some have, therefore, connected the Iberians
with Eber, who came to Ireland with his brother Eremon. This mode of
putting together the same letters of the alphabet from different
countries and languages is a habit of very early philologists,
Greeks especially; and it is certainly a great favourite at present
among the Germans. Celtomaniacs have a great advantage in the
peculiar capacity of the Celtic language to run over letters and
leave whole syllables unattended to. Eber was an ancestor of the
Milesians, and they were a proud and leading race in Ireland; and,
by one tradition, despised the arrow shooting of the Firbolgs as we
do that of savages; by another, they were of the same stock. I put
in the arrow shooting without good historic authority, but the rest
is true. The connection with Eber can only be made out by denying
much that is said of his descendants the Milesians. It would be
necessary to show that when the Irish spoke of Eber as a forefather
of Milesians it was a mistake, since he was the father of the
Firbolgs. The perversion of the fact might have taken place in the
legend, but it is too late to think of this. Still the sound of the
name and the connection of both with Spain must be allowed to be of
interest.

The contradictions on
this point are too many to be solved. At present we may consider the
later Firbolgs as a fallen race, enslaved and mixed with slaves.
They began as a higher one, and first occupied Tara. The mixture
with slaves or a lower dark race might be the cause of their being
considered black-haired. But I deny that all the dark men are small.
I refer to the black Danars of old times who were large, at least
powerful, and to the tall dark men of modern times still more
telling in an argument.

We may now return
home. We seem to have lived through the Romance of the Clan Uisnach
and the homes which they admired, and I wonder sometimes why we have
been so much interested in them. They were strangers to our land,
even partly to our race, and the reason must be in the tragedy
itself, on which human nature naturally looks with interest; also,
because it is the oldest story really connected with our own
Scotland. It begins before our histories, and would be ridiculed by
historians. Perhaps the day may come when it will be accepted, and
men will make use of some of the old Irish literature and its
wondrous life, clearer in its details than Greek or Roman, and
equally characteristic, if not so valuable, in its style of thought.

O'Keefe.—You
look in the right direction ; our literature is unknown, and we have
not a sufficient number of men given to its study. The great
scholars are dying out, and there are few to take their place.
Government fears to spend money on the translations, and England and
the world bear the loss, thinking they are gaining. There are men
who say that we are the same as the Saxons—as well call us like the
negroes. It is true that our literature has not reached the stage of
ripeness; it is full of crude power. It has richness of thought and
extravagance, but these are not drilled by the intellect or the
taste. It is like the rich yellow gorse of Ireland itself,
displaying a beauty that no country can boast of, however rich in
flower—a yellow, golden, sunny beauty, that sometimes covers over
her fields and clothes them as far as we can see, but conceals the
fact that this is caused by want of cultivation. It is as if the
Iand itself had that natural instinct which the people possess of
clothing their thoughts in brightness, and looking even on their
rags with pride. The soul of Ireland is wild, but think of a youth
of such promise. What will be its ripeness in the time when you
Saxons will be sinking in old age!

Loudoun.—It
may be so, but I prefer to enjoy some of the ripeness of national
life, although I sometimes wish for your youthful dancing spirit.
We, even in lowland Scotland, have a good deal of the Celtic blood,
so that we have great diversity of character; and, on the whole, I
have reason to love my own nation. We are, as the old saying made
us, "kindly Scots." In no part of the world will you find people
with more sympathy, or more interest in the welfare of others,
especially their own brethren. We have been till lately poor, but we
have not been less civilized in sonic aspects. I say it, and with
reason and deliberately, the working men of Glasgow were more
civilized fifty years ago than now. They had more of the love of man
and reverence before God. They had less money, but they had less
craving for pleasure; their lives were simpler, and they scarcely
knew that they were poor, if they had only their week's wages ; and
even if that failed, was it not the common lot of man to suffer? and
good friends would help them through, as they themselves had helped
others. They were ruder, but had higher ideals; civilization is
neither science alone, nor refinement of manners nor wealth.

I would I could tell
you more of the beauties of our country, but we must leave. The soil
is covered with romance: I wish there were a phonograph to utter it,
and yet it has one. I might take you home another way, and revel for
weeks in Islay and Jura and Gigha—yes, even in that little Gigha; we
might wander for a season down Cantire, and live among its saints,
its martyrs, and its heroes. We could spend much time in Arran among
its tales and its hills, and as long in Bute, which is a miniature
of Lowlands and Highlands, with its wild, barren rocks and heaths,
and rich, warm gardens; and we might spend a long time in the study
even of the Little Cumbraes, which seem quite covered with the names
of saints, churches, and men to be remembered, a very treasury of
sacred memories. But we must separate, glad to think that even the
wild Loch Etive has interest enough for more than a season for us,
and will have for ages of men; and if that spot, little habited and
little written of, has so much that is interesting, surely a life
could not enter fully into the stories that cover all that ground
which is now called Scotland. We differ distinctly from the English,
and long may we keep different. Assimilation destroys originality.

O'Keefe.—These
memories you mention are all Celtic, and I say Irish, and I was
going to leave you by saying "Eirinn gu brath," but as you are from
the Alban side, I shall include all the Gaels and use the wider
expression " Gaidhealtachd gu brath." (Gaeldom for ever.)

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